Age: 70
male
Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work Angels in America which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn of the 21st Century he became known for his numerous film collaborations with Steven Spielberg. He received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013. Kushner made his Broadway debut in 1993 with both Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America: Perestroika. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. He then adapted it into a 2003 miniseries directed by Mike Nichols for which Kushner received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie. In 2003 he wrote the lyrics and book to the musical Caroline, or Change which earned Kushner Tony Award nominations for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. The 2021 Broadway revival of Caroline, or Change earned Kushner a nomination for the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, making Kushner among the few playwrights in history nominated for all four major American entertainment awards: the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. He has collaborated with director Steven Spielberg on the films Munich (2005), Lincoln (2012), West Side Story (2021), and The Fabelmans (2022), the former two earning him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Description above from the Wikipedia article Tony Kushner, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Set in 1881 beneath the lavish Opéra Populaire in Paris, the story follows Christine Daaé, a young chorus dancer who has been secretly trained by a mysterious tutor she believes is the "Angel of Music." This tutor is actually the Phantom, a brilliant but severely disfigured musical genius who haunts the opera house and manipulates its management through terror. When the Phantom forces the resident prima donna to quit, Christine steps into the spotlight and becomes an overnight sensation. However, her sudden success catches the attention of her wealthy childhood sweetheart, Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, sparking a passionate romance that drives the Phantom into a mad, obsessive jealousy.As the Phantom's demands on the opera management turn deadly, he abducts Christine to his subterranean lair amidst a labyrinth of flooded catacombs. He forces her to choose between a life of captivity with him to save Raoul’s life, or freedom at the cost of her lover's execution. In a climactic confrontation, Christine shows the Phantom profound empathy by kissing his scarred face, an act of pure compassion that shatters his vengeful heart. Moved by her grace, the Phantom releases the young lovers and vanishes into the shadows, leaving behind only his iconic white mask as the authorities close in
